


You're All I Taste

by burningahighwaytohades



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombies, F/M, M/M, Zombie AU, Zombie Apocalypse, Zombies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-12
Updated: 2014-10-22
Packaged: 2018-02-20 19:58:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2441084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burningahighwaytohades/pseuds/burningahighwaytohades
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been two months since half the world lost their lives and the other half turned into flesh-hungry zombies. No one's sure how many survivors there are, but they're fairly certain that there isn't very many. The day it all went down, Harry Styles and his love Louis Tomlinson were separated. They haven't seen or spoken to each other since. Neither one knows if the other is still alive, but they're fighting to find each other. But the question is, is that even possible?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Nothing Goes As Planned

**Author's Note:**

> If you read this, thank you very much for doing so. Please leave any constructive advice and all of your thoughts below in the comment section! If you think of any tags that I should add to the story, please let me know. :)

    It was the same thing every day.

    Wake up, be scared, have one apple, and sit in the middle of the room with a sword and a pistol.

    And that was exactly what Harry was doing now, minus the apple - he'd run out of them a week ago, as his stomach constantly reminded him with growls that were surely loud enough to attract all the zombies lingering and scraping outside the weak walls. He found it remarkable that he'd been able to stay in the same place since it all began, and for that he thanked Louis's paranoia and passion for building things. With all the materials and knowledge that Louis had given him, he'd been able to sturdily block off all of their home. The windows and doors on the first level of the house were boarded up with dozens of nails and strong plywood, and he'd been fortunate enough to find a huge box of long nails, which he'd shot through the boards to create spikes on the other side. Whenever Harry got scared or bored, he would go to their bedroom and kill zombies with the nailgun. Harry grasped the sword with sweaty, callused hand and wondered where Louis was now, and if he was okay.

    If he was alive.

    _No_ , Harry thought. _Don't think like that. He's alive, and you're going to find him._

    Harry realized that his hands were shaking. He wasn't surprised though - he shook whenever he thought of Louis. Sighing, Harry stood and went into the kitchen to search for food. After five minutes of digging through every nook and cranny of the room, he found a couple packages of ramen noodles. Taking a seat at the dining table, he opened one, poured the seasoning on, and began to eat it. The crunching of the dry noodles was loud in the silence. This was his life now, and as he ate, he wondered how this had come to be. One minute, he had been about to leave for Louis’s parents’ house for dinner and the next, he was trapped inside the house because zombies wouldn’t allow him to leave. Water and electricity still worked, but Harry wasn’t sure for how long they would continue without someone controlling them. Harry was broken out of his thoughts when his cell phone began to ring. Shocked, he choked on the noodles but he still ran back to the living room and snatched up the phone from the floor. He didn’t need to check the caller ID to know who it was. He answered it.

    “Louis? I-Is that you?”

    A shuddery breath.

    “Yeah, it’s me.”

    Tears filled his eyes. His heart ached at the sound of Louis's voice because he knew that he would hear it very little for a long time. It made him break with the memories, with the longing for Louis to be there once more. “God, Lou, I...The sound of your voice...I miss you so much. Please tell me you’re okay.”

    “I miss you too,” Louis said quietly. “I’m okay. I mean, I’m not hurt or anything. What about you?”

    “I’m as well as I’m going to get without you here.”

    A pause.

    “Harry,” Louis said, heartbreak evident in his voice.. “I’m going to find a way to get back to you. I don’t care what it is I have to do. I don’t care if it kills me. Even if I make it there and I get bit, I’ll spend my last seconds with you against me. Whatever the hell is going on, we'll survive. We'll survive and we'll be together again. You, me, our families, we'll be okay again. _Harry_ ," Louis said harshly. "I'm going to kiss you again."

    Harry was silent for a moment. He suddenly found that he couldn’t breathe, now matter how hard he tried to suck in the air. His reflection in the black television screen revealed to him that he was sobbing silently, face crinkled and red as tears fell fast. Seconds later, his vision blurred and he couldn't see a thing. Chest aching with pain and lack of air, Harry forced himself to speak. “I love you too. I-”

    From the other end of the phone, the sound of a pained shriek stunned Harry into silence. There was shouting, banging, the sound of glass shattering and then a thud that sounded as if the phone had fallen to the ground, and then there was another scream - but this one was from Louis. It was the epitome of heartache. “No! No!”

    “Louis?” Harry called into the phone. “Louis?” There was more screaming, more chaos, and then the phone cut off, and only silence remained. After a moment, Harry swallowed around the lump in his throat and brokenly whispered into the phone, hoping for an answer that he wouldn't get. "Louis...?"

    Silence.

    It was another two weeks before Harry heard from Louis again. The phone call only lasted a few minutes before Harry's phone died. It was barely enough to exchange I love you's, and Harry realized afterwards that it hurt much worse to hear his voice and then have it stop than it did to not hear it all. In a way, it made Harry thankful that his phone had died after that, because then he wouldn't be able to hear Louis's voice. It was like having everything you wanted dangling in front of your face behind a see-through wall and unable to get to it. Perhaps the worst part of this was that Harry didn't know what had happened at the end of their last phone call. He wanted to know why everyone had been screaming. All he could think about was that he needed to get to Louis. He had to find a way to get there, to hug him again, to smell him and taste him. 

    A few days after their first phone call, the power went out, leaving Harry in the dark and cold. He'd erased his phone of everything but his contacts in order to converse battery because he knew once the phone died, it would die for good, and he wanted to make sure that he got to speak to Louis again before it happened. A day or so after the power went out, the water had stopped working as well. It started to show soon after Harry's phone died, and he noticed that his hair was tangled and starting to get greasy. Harry needed to find a way to get to Louis. He knew it, and he was going to do whatever was necessary to make it happen. And that's what he dreamt of every night when he went to bed -- finding Louis.


	2. Everything Will Break

**Oct. 29, 2014**

    Harry knew that this was a stupid plan. He also knew the risk involved and he knew that the likelihood of his survival was minimal. When he thought about it, he almost wanted to forget it, but then he remembered what he was doing it for. No, _who_ he was doing it for. The thought of Louis, of getting to him, had the power to make him do anything, even something as foolish as this. Staring at his reflection in the mirror, he felt all of the courage drain out of his body. Suddenly he wanted to curl up into a ball and just lie there forever. He felt hopeless. The sight of the long, tangled curly brown hair that fell around his face in messy waves reminded him just how much he'd fallen apart in the short amount of time he'd had to deal with this. He looked as if he were homeless, with his messy hair, red, puffy eyes and stubble that stuck out at weird angles. Soon, though, he would be homeless. The silence was deafening as he grabbed a hairtie from the bathroom counter and put his hair up into a suspiciously good bun. He assessed himself once more and took in a deep breath.

    "Harry, you can do this," he whispered to himself.

    He was lying, and his eyes only showed fear, but he left the room anyways and went upstairs into his and Louis's bedroom. Through the open window he heard the haunting moans of the creatures outside. Checking himself to make sure he had all of his weapons, he climbed out the window and sat atop the roof for a moment. Despite the fact he had a pistol attached to his leg in a thigh holster, and despite the fact he had a sword sheathed in an over-the-shoulder holder, he felt the courage drain from his body at the sight. Fifty or so of the undead stumbled around outside his home. They were the especially stupid ones that hadn't moved on down the road after the first two weeks of being unable to get into the house. They smelled him already, and Harry was thankful they were unable to see. Carefully, he inspected the path he needed to take, inspected how fast he would have to move to reach his car, which was unlocked and sat about twenty feet away. In one swift movement, Harry hopped down from the second-story roof and landed firmly on the ground. He didn't pause for a second as he stood and raced forward. An undead elderly woman grabbed Harry by the hair as he reached the car and yanked him to the ground. For a moment, he thought he wasn't even going to make it out of the driveway, and he wanted to say Louis's name and know that he died with his name across his lips.

    But -

    Harry jammed his fingers into the woman's eye sockets and pulled her head forward, dragging her over him and to the ground. He moved to his knees at the same time, and stomped on her head two times as he stood, hard enough that her immediately stopped moving. The others had moved closer to him now, and scratched out at him as he opened the car door and crawled inside. A zombie lost four fingers when he slammed the door shut. Harry gasped and scrambled to put the key into the ignition. A smile broke out across his face as he realized that he made it. _He actually made it_. The engine sputtered to life as the creatures threw themselves at the car in desperation, clawing at the windows and trying to bite him through the glass. Their saliva dripped. Pieces of their flesh stuck to the window. "I'm coming, Louis," he said, and stomped on the gas.

////

    The room was still stained with blood. He hadn't had the energy or emotional strength to do anything with it at all. He hadn't moved the body, either. Somehow he felt it was better to keep her --- no, _it_ \--- in the house, rather than putting her outside to get devoured by the very things that had taken her life. Louis stood in the doorway of the room, staring down at his mother's rotting body. He could still see the bite wound on the side of her face. He slid to the floor, back against the door frame, and tried not to cry as he remembered the bone-chilling scream she'd release when she'd been bitten. It was starting to smell terribly, so much so that even his vast variety of candles weren't able to cover up the smell for more than a few minutes. He just couldn't get himself to move her. Not yet. "I'm sorry, Mum."

    Despite himself, he waited for a reply. And it didn't come.

    "I tried to save you, Mum. I did. And I'm so sorry that I couldn't save you. That I couldn't _protect_ you. But maybe this isn't such a terrible thing. Now you're free from this new world we're living in. You won't have to live in fear anymore. This may be wrong for me to think but sometimes I feel a bit...A bit jealous that it was you who left and not me."

    Wiping his tears away, Louis forced himself to stand, closing the door quietly behind him, as if she would cringe from the sound of a slammed door wherever she was. Making his way downstairs, he took his phone from his pocket and helplessly attempted to turn it on. He knew it wouldn't, but he had to try. As always, it remained black. Louis stared at it for a moment, angry, and then threw it so hard against the floor that it shattered into pieces. He fell to his knees, hot tears rolling down his cheeks as he gasped in pain. He wanted to scream out for Harry, but a sound wouldn't leave his lips. But his mind? His mind screamed louder than he ever thought possible. His mind screamed out for Harry, for his mother, for the loss of the world as he'd known it and loved it. His mind screamed out for the fact that he didn't know where the rest of his family was, or if they were okay. His mind screamed out of hopelessness.


	3. People Say Goodbye In Their Own Special Way

**October 30, 2014**

 

    The heat from the early morning light shining in through the car window woke Harry up first. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and sat up, peering out the window to check for walkers. There were none, and despite how surprising it was, Harry was obviously glad. He'd kept driving deep into the night until he just couldn't keep his eyes open anymore, and had parked the car just before the forest began on the side of the road. Before he'd gone to bed he'd killed a walker and slathered it's insides and blood all over the car to cover up his own scent.

    Harry tightened his bun and climbed into the driver's seat, once again inspecting the area around him before he started the car. There weren't any walkers as far as the eye could see. Harry's grip on the wheel tightened as he thought of Louis -- the way his eyes crinkled when he smiled, the way his voice rose an octave when he got tickled, the way he felt inside Harry's arms on a cold night when the blankets just weren't enough. The pain hit Harry like a tide, but instead of crying, he stomped on the gas and shot forward down the road.

    He drove for three hours before he found a WalMart. On the way he passed hundreds of walkers, but none of them were fast enough to catch him. There were just a few dozen walkers lingering around the parking lot, but there was no doubt dozens and dozens more inside the now abandoned store, directly in front of which Harry was now parked. Harry knew that this was going to be a challenge, but he also knew that he could make it. He knew that because Louis had convinced him of it every day since the day they first met six years before. Gathering his courage with a breath, Harry got out of the car, sword in hand, and rushed for the door. 

    Inside, the store was falling apart. Shelves were knocked over, food rotten and squished, glass broken. Lights flickered, and blood covered the floors.  More than thirty zombies were milling about the store, stumbling over each other and fallen objects, moaning and scratching at the walls to get out. As Harry stepped inside, all of them stilled, turned, and stared at him. Raising the sword, he braced himself, and quietly moved through them, zooming between them and around them to preserve energy and get past as many as possible. Suddenly, all at once, they ran for him, tripping over themselves in their haste to get to him. With a swing of his sword, Harry cut off the heads of four of the creatures. He made a beeline for the long rectangular freezers and hopped inside, swishing the sword in a circle around him. Four more zombies fell.

    Within seconds, he was entirely surrounded by hungry zombies. As each one neared the freezer and drew their heads in, he swiped the sword and they fell, dead. He was unsure of how much time had passed by the time he found that they were all dead, lying in a pool of blood around him, and he was swinging his sword at the air. Harry fell silent, trying to calm his racing heart as blood dripped down his face and arms. Once his breathing steadied, he was able to hear clearly - and he still heard moaning, but he didn't think there was more than ten left. Harry jumped to the ground, nearly sliding to his knees in the mess of blood, and stood, finally realizing how tired he now was. His legs and arms felt like jelly, but his courage remained, and that would have to be enough.

    Harry hurried around the store, grabbing things that he needed or that he thought Louis might need. First, he grabbed a big duffel bag and then a smaller one, plus another small backpack. In them, he packed toilet paper, baby wipes, canned foods, bread, candles, lighters, and clothes. As he reached the exit, four zombies stumbled out into the open. Harry dropped the bags to the floor and pulled his sword out again, waiting for them to come near him before he struck. The first one he pierced through the heart and then again through the forehead. It dropped. The second one he sliced crookedly down his face. He dropped. Harry kicked the third one to the ground, shoving his boot through it's head at the same time as he decapitated the fourth one. 

    Harry grabbed four soda bottles on the way out, took out the first three zombies outside the entrance doors, then launched the glass bottles to his left, far away from himself and his car. The distraction worked - most of the zombies hurried away at the sound of breaking glass in hopes that they would find food. Harry threw his new bags into the backseat and wasted no time as he sped away, hoping with every part of him that he would make it to Louis's mother's home before anything went wrong. 

    And then a man crashed onto the hood of the car.

 

///

 

    Louis stared at himself in the mirror and it scared him, because the person staring back at him wasn't him. It couldn't be. This blood covering his body, dripping through his light brown hair, this just couldn't be real. It couldn't be him underneath all those blood and tears. It couldn't be him that had just carried his mother's dead body to the bedroom window and rolled her down the roof. Exhausted, Louis grabbed a towel and began to scrub the blood from his face. It hurt, but he needed to get it off. He just had to.

    A loud crash from down the hall caused Louis to stiffen. 

    A bang.

    Louis stuck his head out the door and looked down the hallway just as a hooded man emerged from the master bedroom, armed with a kitchen knife. The man spotted Louis and froze. They both stared at each other in silence for a moment before Louis turned and bolted down the hallway and down the stairs. He threw himself to the floor beside his rifle and rolled onto his back, pointing the gun in front of him just as the man stumbled down the last step. "If you move I'll kill you," Louis shouted.

    The man stared at the gun with a nervous swallow, and raised his hands. "Please. I'm not here to hurt you-"

    Louis didn't let his guard down. He glanced at the knife clasped in the man's bloody hand. "Then what've you got that for? Why did you break in instead of calling for help?"

    The man dropped his knife to the floor, but Louis noticed that he still looked terrified. As he studied the man, he noticed that his brown beard was full of dried blood. "I didn't know if any of those things were in here. It was the only weapon I had. Please."

    Although Louis realized the man made sense, he still didn't point his gun away. "Who are you?"

    "Would you put the gun down, please? It's kind of hard to have a proper conversation when there's a gun pointed at my head."

    Louis put his finger to the trigger. "Who are you?"

    "My name is L-Liam. As I said, I'm not-I'm not going to hurt you. I just needed a place to go. I don't have anywhere else. Besides, I didn't think there would be anyone in here."

    Louis examined Liam carefully, searching for any signs of a hidden weapon. Deciding that there wasn't any, he set the gun to the floor and stood. "If you have anything in your pockets I suggest you empty them now. If I get suspicious, I'll search you myself and you won't want that."

    Liam, though unnerved, nodded and proceeded to show Louis that he had nothing else on him. Louis took a seat on the couch and shifted his eyes to the armchair on the other side of the room, hinting at Liam to sit down. He did. Louis crossed his arms and kept his eyes on Liam watchfully. "What's your story, Liam?"

    Liam shrugged, confused. "I really don't know."

    "Yes, you do. What's your story since this all happened?"

    "I know why you're asking. If I was in your position, I'd be doing the same thing. But I don't want to talk about it, so please don't make me."

    "Okay...Okay, that's fine," Louis sighed, standing. "Do you want something to eat? All I've got at the moment is canned soup."

    Liam's eyes shifted around the room uneasily. There was pain and fear in them; Louis noticed, but didn't address it. Imagining himself in Liam's position made him soften. "You don't have to tell me your story. I was wrong to ask you that. I'm sorry, but it's better to be safe than sorry. Especially nowadays. Do you know of any other survivors?"

    "My sister Sophia. We were separated a couple of weeks ago, but she's tough. I know she's alive. What about you?"

    "My husband," Louis said. Sadness washed over his face like a wave, warning Liam not to speak about it again. Liam wanted to, but he didn't -- after all, Louis wasn't forcing him to talk about his own troubles anymore. "My name's Louis, by the way."

    Liam extended his hand and Louis shook it. "Nice to meet you, Louis."

    "Nice to meet you, Liam."

    It was silent for a moment, and then, Louis grabbed two cans of clam chowder from the kitchen cupboard, two bowls, two spoons, and sat down on the floor of the living room, in front of Liam. As they ate, they were silent, but neither of them felt the desire or need to speak. After, Liam started to look more comfortable. "I lost my brother when those things first appeared. I was at my mother's house for her birthday dinner with my family. We got separated when they got inside the house. Sophia and I stayed together but we had to leave. Two weeks ago, the cottage we'd broken into got overrun. And now I'm here. I don't know what happened to the rest of my family."

    Louis listened to Liam sadly. "We're a bit in the same boat, Liam. My mother's gone, but I've no idea what happened to my other family. My husband - his name's Harry - is at our home. He was on his way here when it happened."

    "You reckon he's still alive?"

    Louis nodded. "I know he is. Before our phones died just a few weeks ago, we'd been speaking on the phone. We promised that we'd make it back to each other. But I'm starting to think that maybe that was a bit foolish."

    "No," Liam snapped, surprising Louis. "Don't say that. You will make it back to each other. You'll get back to your husband - Harry - and I'll find my sister. I'll find the rest of my family, you'll find yours. We'll survive. All of us. Together."

    Louis looked at Liam with a trace of a smile. "I admire your faith."

    "You should. Because I'm telling the truth."

     "Okay."


	4. IMPORTANT INFO

I was almost finished with the next couple chapters when, like a dumbass, I reset my computer to its factory settings and lost it..So I'ma be a week or so before I update again.


End file.
